Are We Exceptional? 

     July 4th fireworks have come and gone. 

     Progressives (we say, they are regressive) demean the holiday. They don't celebrate our independence. 

     Some of us forgot or never knew that July 4th is about the Colonies gaining independence from England. Or that the Declaration of Independence was adopted July 4, 1776. 

     Professor Larry Schweikar, U. of Dayton, now living in Arizona, discusses "four pillars" that shaped the U.S. We will summarize them in Views by the Sea. 

     But first, he says, "Lots of nations have gained independence - French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese - and many immediately fell back into tyranny." Germany and Japan began with constitutions and democratic practices, only to fall under oppression, and are democratic again after World War II. 

     Latin American countries free from Spain, he says, suffered a century of upheaval and military coups. France needed five tries to get its republic right. "In short," he writes, "independence doesn't necessarily mean much in itself. So why do we celebrate ours?" 

      There were a few ancient societies with variations in which the people ran things. But, as in Rome, only the upper classes counted as people. (Remember that.) The Dutch republic came close to democracy, but they were entirely under Spanish or British protection. "It's easy," he says, "if you don't have insiders to vie for power."

      Schweikar and author David Daugherty investigated, compared and contrasted, arriving at four distinct differences (on the whole) between America and any other country in history. They call these traits the "four pillars of American exceptionalism." No country in history, even today, had or has the first two pillars. 

Tomorrow: Pillar #1